hey had finished, they left
without trouble.

Once I was spending the evening at Burchineau's place when a number of
the Red River cart men were there. As they were part Indian and part
white, I looked down on them. One of them challenged me to see who could
dance the longest. I would not let him win on account of his color, so
danced until my teeth rattled and I saw stars. It seemed as if I was
dancing in my sleep, but I would not give up and jigged him down.

I remember a dance in the messhouse in '48 when there were ten white
girls who lived in St. Anthony there. They were wonderfully graceful
dancers--very agile and tireless. The principal round dance was a three
step waltz without the reverse. It was danced very rapidly. The French
four, danced in fours, facing, passing through, all around the room, was
most popular. The square dances were exceedingly vigorous, all jigging
on the corners and always taking fancy steps. We never went home until
morning, dancing all the time with the greatest vim. This mess house
stood between the river and the front door of the old Exposition
Building.

The Red River carts used to come down from Fort Garry loaded with furs.
There had been a white population in that part of the country and around
Pembina long before there was any settlement in what is now Minnesota.
The drivers were half breeds, sons of the traders and hunters. They
always looked more Indian than white. In the early days, in remote
places, where a white man lived with the Indians, his safety was assured
if he took an Indian woman for his wife. These cart drivers generally
wore buckskin clothes, tricked out so as to make them gay. They had
regular camping places from twelve to fifteen miles apart, as that was a
day's journey for these carts.

As there was not much to amuse us, we were always interested to see the
carts and their squawking was endured, as it could not be cured. It
could be heard three miles away. They came down the Main Road,
afterwards called the Anoka road.

The lumber to face the first dam in '47 came from Marine. There had been
a mill there since 1834, I believe.

We used to tap the maple trees in the forest on Nicollet Island. We had
to keep guard to see that the Chippewas did not steal the sap.

The messhouse where I boarded, was of timber. It was forty feet square.
It had eight or ten beds in one room.

Mrs. Mahlon Black--1848.

When I came to Stillwater in 1848, I thought I had got